Batman The TellTale Series Batman The TellTale Series Episode One: Realm Of Shadows Review

By Kue2086 on August 6, 2016

So is Batman The Telltale Series Episode One: Realm Of Shadows the game that we deserve or is it not the one we need right now?

Batman The Telltale Series has only one episode in at this point. Normally we would like to review a full game but since Telltale breaks the game up in Episodes that release every 5-8 weeks, we will review them as they come.

There are plenty of Batman games out there these days. How does this one stack up? Lets dig in

Story

The series kicks off with Batman stumbling across Catwoman as she tries to steal a hard drive containing extremely sensitive data from City Hall. accompanied with a nice fight sequence, it really set the stage for the rest of the episode.

After the Catwoman throw down, we catch up with Bruce Wayne, who is throwing his support behind Harvey Dent as he runs for Mayor of Gotham. As we all know, politicians in Gotham can be pretty corrupt so it was only right that Falcone throws his weight around during election time. Without going into much detail of the story itself, we can just say that Bruce Wayne wasn’t too pleased with Falcone’s presence.

The story itself plays out just as a comic book would except that your choices made during the story may have consequences down the line. The choices you make can not only affect friendships, it can affect lives. During Episode One, Bruce Wayne introduces Jim Gordon, Harvey Dent, Falcone, Vickie Vail and a few others.

The story is good so far. As more episodes release, we can get more of an understand on how it all comes together.

Graphics

Visually, Batman The Telltale Series is what you would expect if you have played other games such as The Wolf Among Us. It’s a comic book stuffed in a game. Don’t compare it to Arkham Knight as it was never created to compete with graphics of that caliber. With that said, it’s still extremely detailed. I have seen comics far worse. The only issues I have is that the characters walk as if there was a cardboard stuck up their butts. Also the facial expressions sometimes doesn’t match the situation.

Gameplay

Even though most of the time the game will be based on your decisions, the parts of the game that you can play are pretty good. Batman The Telltale Series Episode One: Realm Of Shadows does a great job making sure that the controls were different from your traditional fighting games.

Completing the button combinations it gives you will achieve your goal. Unfortunately, missing a combination doesn’t really penalize you in most situations. I recall missing 3 combinations in a row but I was still able to pull off the sequence of moves needed during the fight. I wish that the game would have done a better job at holding me accountable for not getting it right. In fact, the only time I remember being held accountable was during the last sequence with Falcone in his office. I didn’t fire my rockets from the deployed Bat-drone, resulting in my demise.

I hoped to have more control over the movement of the characters themselves. The only time I remember having a chance to walk around was in the park looking for Cobblepot, and in the warehouse investigating a massacre. and even then you could not go far. Sadly, Batman dodges bullets all on his own in this game.

Detective mode was also much different from what most are used to. Batman The Telltale series uses a connect the dots approach to solving issues. Once the dots are connected, the game sets off a chain of events that occurred. Once again, while its different, I would have liked to be more involved.Truthfully, I could go on and one about the gameplay, or lack there of. The game seems to be built more for PC considering that there are not really that much movement to be done that take advantage of a console based controller.

Summary

Batman The Telltale Series Episode One: Realm Of Shadows is not Arkham Knight by any stretch of the imagination but even with its cheaper price tag, this Batman series really throws down. If you’re a fan of Batman comics or looking for a different experience, this game would be right up your alley. Its like playing out a comic book with an Xbox controller. If you’re looking for an action packed game with top-notch graphics… this may not be the game you’re looking for, as that is not what this game was intended to be.

This is a game that plays off the decisions you make. As you go from one episode to the next, your decisions will begin to have greater consequences.

Even with the short list of negatives, Batman The Telltale Series Episode One: Realm Of Shadows is a must buy for any gamer or Batman enthusiast. Telltale ushers in a unique game style that should have a genre all its own. I cant wait to see what Episode two brings.

Batman The Telltale Series Episode One: Realm Of Shadows is now available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.